An Interview with Marc Rosen on Glamour Icons: Perfume Bottle Design

Lelong, Lucien Lelong, 1999: “Lucien Lelong invented prêt-à-porter—ready-to-wear,” says Rosen of the couturier who enjoyed great fame and prestige in the 1930s and '40s. Rosen decided to go totally contemporary when tasked with creating a new bottle for the fragrance, which included a digitally powered clock. “I love this concept of it being the fragrance that made time stand still."

What could be more ephemeral than perfume? The instant you spray it, its physical traces disappear and only the scent remains.

Its effervescence lends perfume a spiritual quality. Since ancient times, pleasant scents have been incorporated into religious ceremonies. The Exodus account of Moses’s construction of the Tabernacle, the dwelling place of God, includes mention of an altar specifically for the burning of incense. And lest we forget the Christmas tale of the Magi bringing sweet-smelling gifts of frankincense and myrrh to the infant Christ’s manger?

But while on earth, perfume requires a body. That’s where Marc Rosen comes in. Since starting with Avon in 1972, Rosen has designed iconic perfume bottles for Burberry, Elizabeth Arden,Karl Lagerfeld, and so many more, winning seven FiFi awards—the fragrance industry’s Oscars—in the process. “The bottle should be the physical embodiment of the fragrance,” says Rosen. He maintains that the packaging is a perfume’s “silent salesman."

This October, Rosen presents Glamour Icons: Perfume Bottle Design, a book filled with images and anecdotes of his own bottles, as well as gorgeous photographs of his vintage inspirations. “I [chose vintage] bottles that underscore [the] definition of glamour in each decade,” he says. All proceeds from the book will be donated to his packaging-design scholarship at Pratt—the Marc Rosen Scholarship and Education Fund.

A Pratt alumnus, Rosen attended the school on a design fellowship, and remembers bringing a design project in to show Avon when applying for a summer job. “They loved it so much they bought it," he remembers. "And they paid me $3,000." He bought a brand-new Volkswagen Beetle. “I thought, This is the career for me.” Over a recent phone call with the Beauty Blog, Rosen shared more of his favorite memories from a lifetime in designing perfume bottles. All images are from Rosen’s forthcoming book, Glamour Icons: Perfume Bottle Design.

__Advertisement for KL__Working with Karl Lagerfeld on his first fragrance, KL, Rosen was inspired by Lagerfeld’s use of fans—both on his person and in his fashion shows. “We all think of them as kind of obsolete accessories,” says Rosen. “But when I did research, I realized that in the 18th and 19th century, besides being used for ventilation, a fan was a weapon of flirtation. A woman could put the fan in front of her face so the man could just see her eyes.” (Photograph by Arthur Elgort)

These pencil drawings of the KL bottle, by Marc Rosen, hint at the logistics required for its inception. Rosen insisted upon the use of cut glass—to give the fan sharper edges—rather than the molded glass that is normally used for perfume bottles. Then there was the cap. “The main event here is the bottle. I needed the cap to be just a gold sliver, so you couldn’t see the neck,” he explains. “Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. The glass company Pochet, in Paris, created an inverted neck for the bottle, so the stopper went into it.” The design won Rosen his first FiFi award, in 1984.

Red Door, Elizabeth Arden, 1989 Consistently one of Elizabeth Arden’s best-sellers, its bottles remain iconic. Rosen says he designed them with the brand's history in mind. “Ms. Arden had started [the Red Door] salon before she ever had a cosmetic line, in 1908,” he explains. “These were places that only women went to. It was their own salon of beauty. The Red Door fragrance was to echo the spas. Every Red Door salon in the world has a bright-red paneled door and an arch over it.”

Dahlia, Arlene Dahl, 1976 When Arlene Dahl, the famous redheaded movie star from Hollywood’s golden age, hired Rosen to design a bottle for her perfume, they were married to other people; by 1984, they were married to each other. But back to the bottle. “Arlene had gone to Paris and was inspired by an antique perfume bottle that was very elegant,” he says. “And I knew, because she’s so glamorous, that the package had to have a lot of glamour.” In fact, the book is dedicated—along with Rosen’s mother—to Arlene, who he says "defines glamour." “She really is the embodiment of a certain type of glamour from the movies,” Rosen says of his wife. “Bigger than life: very feminine, very elegant.”

__Joy, Jean Patou , 1930, bottle design by Louis Süe__Rosen found it no easy task deciding which vintage bottles to include in the book. “I had so many to choose from,” he says. “It was very difficult. But these are my favorites. I really consider them glamour icons.” The striking austerity of the 1930 Joy bottle speaks for itself.

Votigy, A. Gravier, 1913, bottle design by Baccarat Rosen has collected bottles like this for years. “I think women love butterflies; they collect them. I think they’re so romantic, butterflies,” he says. In his book, he explains that the made-up name references two French words: “voltiger,” a verb meaning to turn somersaults in the air and often used to describe the flight of butterflies, and possibly also “volage,” meaning flighty, which was considered a female attribute.

Hatie Carnegie, Hatie Carnegie, 1938Hattie Carnegie, wife of the millionaire American philanthropist, opened her eponymous fashion boutique in 1923, and launched her own perfume line in 1928. “When you design a bottle," Rosen says, "you have to decide what is the main event: Is it the cap? Is it the bottle? Because if every inch of it is trying to be special, then it competes with each other and cancels everything out." The main event here is clearly the stopper, which is a bust of Mrs. Carnegie herself.

__Advertisement for KL__Working with Karl Lagerfeld on his first fragrance, KL, Rosen was inspired by Lagerfeld’s use of fans—both on his person and in his fashion shows. “We all think of them as kind of obsolete accessories,” says Rosen. “But when I did research, I realized that in the 18th and 19th century, besides being used for ventilation, a fan was a weapon of flirtation. A woman could put the fan in front of her face so the man could just see her eyes.” (Photograph by Arthur Elgort)

These pencil drawings of the KL bottle, by Marc Rosen, hint at the logistics required for its inception. Rosen insisted upon the use of cut glass—to give the fan sharper edges—rather than the molded glass that is normally used for perfume bottles. Then there was the cap. “The main event here is the bottle. I needed the cap to be just a gold sliver, so you couldn’t see the neck,” he explains. “Everyone looked at me like I was crazy. The glass company Pochet, in Paris, created an inverted neck for the bottle, so the stopper went into it.” The design won Rosen his first FiFi award, in 1984.

Red Door, Elizabeth Arden, 1989 Consistently one of Elizabeth Arden’s best-sellers, its bottles remain iconic. Rosen says he designed them with the brand's history in mind. “Ms. Arden had started [the Red Door] salon before she ever had a cosmetic line, in 1908,” he explains. “These were places that only women went to. It was their own salon of beauty. The Red Door fragrance was to echo the spas. Every Red Door salon in the world has a bright-red paneled door and an arch over it.”

Dahlia, Arlene Dahl, 1976 When Arlene Dahl, the famous redheaded movie star from Hollywood’s golden age, hired Rosen to design a bottle for her perfume, they were married to other people; by 1984, they were married to each other. But back to the bottle. “Arlene had gone to Paris and was inspired by an antique perfume bottle that was very elegant,” he says. “And I knew, because she’s so glamorous, that the package had to have a lot of glamour.” In fact, the book is dedicated—along with Rosen’s mother—to Arlene, who he says "defines glamour." “She really is the embodiment of a certain type of glamour from the movies,” Rosen says of his wife. “Bigger than life: very feminine, very elegant.”

Shanghai, Marc Rosen, 2004 Eventually, Rosen decided to create his own perfume. The idea of Shanghai came from a discussion with his friend Cindy Adams, the famed New York Post gossip columnist. He was inspired by the contrast of the old and the new in New York. “The core of the city is still Chinese pagoda architecture, which is surrounded by the most contemporary skyscrapers,” he says. “[For the bottle] I created a very contemporary Lucite pole—like the pole that fishermen have over their shoulders, with pails of water, in these old Chinese prints.” Rosen won his seventh FiFi award for the design.

Jil Stuart, Jil Stuart, 2007 When designing a bottle, Rosen maintains that “the concept should underscore the personality of the designer or the celebrity"—in this case, Jil Stuart. “Her clothes are very feminine,” he says. “We both liked this design because it was very, very feminine, and it really embodied her point of view about fashion because it has the retro feeling.”

Left: L’Air du Temps, Nina Ricci, 1951, bottle by Marc Lalique and Robert Ricci. Right: L’Air du Temps, Nina Ricci, 2000, bottle by Marc Rosen Marc Lalique was one of the greatest perfume-bottle designers of all time. For the millennium, Rosen set about to re-interpret Lalique’s classic bottle for Nina Ricci. “I wanted the idea of a globe that was spinning that appeared to have movement,” he says, “with the doves of peace on top of the world. So, we designed the bottle with this spiral. so it looked like it was spinning.”

__Joy, Jean Patou , 1930, bottle design by Louis Süe__Rosen found it no easy task deciding which vintage bottles to include in the book. “I had so many to choose from,” he says. “It was very difficult. But these are my favorites. I really consider them glamour icons.” The striking austerity of the 1930 Joy bottle speaks for itself.

Votigy, A. Gravier, 1913, bottle design by Baccarat Rosen has collected bottles like this for years. “I think women love butterflies; they collect them. I think they’re so romantic, butterflies,” he says. In his book, he explains that the made-up name references two French words: “voltiger,” a verb meaning to turn somersaults in the air and often used to describe the flight of butterflies, and possibly also “volage,” meaning flighty, which was considered a female attribute.

Hatie Carnegie, Hatie Carnegie, 1938Hattie Carnegie, wife of the millionaire American philanthropist, opened her eponymous fashion boutique in 1923, and launched her own perfume line in 1928. “When you design a bottle," Rosen says, "you have to decide what is the main event: Is it the cap? Is it the bottle? Because if every inch of it is trying to be special, then it competes with each other and cancels everything out." The main event here is clearly the stopper, which is a bust of Mrs. Carnegie herself.